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The leadoff walks killed him. He's falling behind, it seems, every hitter. How long before the rust is removed ? I don't know. He looks to throwing as hard as he used to, which wasn't all that amped up to begin with. Unless he's pin point, he's in for long ab's and no apparent out pitch.

Big win for the M's today on the back of King Felix (and a solo HR by Kennedy).

Felix was in form tonight, going 7.2 innings, with 8 Strikeouts, only 4 hits and 3 walks, all on 126 pitches!

This was Felix's 2nd win of the 2011 season, a much needed one. All he needed to carry the club to victory was given to him in the 4th inning when Kennedy hit his 2nd HR in as many days. Kennedy has been a bright spot in the lineup lately, hitting .316 on the season so far!

In other news, Peguero got his 1st major league hit tonight, an infield single of all things! He certainly runs well for a big guy (6'5''). His power in the minors is well documented so far and I am excited about it but with such a big looping swing, we are sure to see a lot of SO's from him as well (something that was a problem in the minors as well. Maybe they can shorten that swing a little bit. That should only sacrifice a little power but he could make more contact and the more solid contact he makes, the better. Also worth mentioning, he did get picked off from 1B after his single after he slipped a little.

Though we did win the game, aside from the HR and Felix's pitching performance, there was not too much to be happy about as the M's were only able to eek out 4 hits on the night (and 1 walk). Of course, part of this is because the Athletics starter McCarthy was on fire tonight as well, going the distance in the loss, giving up just the solo HR.

Pineda is starting tomorrow, so here is hoping he was paying attention. Pineda has been amazing so far, showing us just what we have been expecting. And at just age 22, I definitely have high hopes for him! Imagine, having 2 Felix's on our staff! They are saying that Pineda has been watching Felix and learning from him - a very smart move on his part. Having Pineda right after Felix is also a smart move, allowing him to get a good look at what it takes to get the opponents out. So I am excited for tomorrow and the future!

Is anyone watching the game tonight? Looks like we may have a copy of yesterdays game (though I hope we can drum up a little more run support for Pineda). The M's are up 1-0 so far as they head into the 3rd innng.

Pineda picks up his 3rd win of the season after tossing 6 scoreless innings. He only gave up 5 hits and 2 walks along with 5 strikeouts with 97 pitches. He was just on tonight and definitely commanded with his fastball which started at 97 MPH in the first and topped out at 98 MPH in the 6th!

Pauley, Laffey, Wright and league came in to finish out the game and keep the Shutout alive!

Bradley left the game early because of some back issues and was replaced with Saunders who though hitless, garnered a walk and subsequently scored a run. Ichiro was 2-4 tonight, his 8th multiple hit game of the season I believe. Figgins was hitless but with a walk and a run as well. Cust had 2 walks and an RBI and the Hot hitting Adam Kennedy was 2-4 with 2 RBI and a run! The bottom 4 in the order went 3-14 with 2 walks.

So the team continues to get walks and it helped tonight as they had yet another bases loaded walk! How many is that so far this season? They added a total of 7 walks tonight to add to their league leading 81 (88 now).

Noteworthy: Ichiro got his 390th SB of his career! So only 10 away from 400!

A very good showing by the Mariners hitters tonight who fought their way to a 4-0 win. But the story like last night is the starting pitching! I know that this was just his 4th start and all, but there is just too much talent in the kid and there are clearly immediate results to be happy about. The possibility of several years of Felix/Pineda makes me sleep happy!

Pineda now sports a 1.78 ERA over 25 innings spread over 4 starts. He did not work too deep into the game due to a high pitch count but the kid is only 23 years old so as they learned with Felix, you take it slow with him. But depending on how things go, I do not see them using the kid gloves with him as much as they did with Felix (who came up at age 19).

Well, Bedard is having quite a night for himself. This is just what he and the team needed from him. Before tonight, he had not finished 6 innings, now he is through 7 innings so far and has only 88 pitches! He has also given up only 1 run and currently has the lead and is looking for his first win of the season! The big thing that I have seen is that he has not walked a batter - that has saved a lot of needless baserunners.

Bedard picks up his first win of the season and lowers his ERA top 5.96 (down from 7.71) after a 7 inning, 1 run performance. He only gave up 5 hits with no walks and 3 strikeouts. Wright came in and pitched a scoreless 8th inning and Laffey finished them off in the 9th with another scoreless inning. Detroit was only able to score in the 1st inning before being shut down!

The M's have now won 4 out of their last 6 games, outscoring opponent 25-18. Not amazing but not bad either.

The M's got to Verlander early, scoring an early 3 in the 1st inning off the Justin Smoak HR! They picked up another insurance run in the 5th to go up 4-1 but later piled on 6 more in the top of the 9th to put the game away!

The top 5 in the order did most of the damage, with each of them getting on base at least twice. Ichiro had 2 hits with an RBI and 2 runs. They said he was hitting .385 with RISP coming into the game, so that went up today I am sure. Figgins also had a couple hits and a walks and a SB and a run and an RBI. He is still only hitting .180 on the season but he has slowly been picking it up . . . up from .150 though, so it's not saying much.

Bradley did not have a hit but had a couple walks and scored a couple runs. He also reached base, twice on errors (2 of the 4 put up by the Tigers). Olivo had a 3 hit day while knocking in a run and scored a couple times as well.

The big player of the day of course (aside from Bedard) is none other than Justin Smoak. After his 1st inning 3-run HR, he collected another couple RBI off a single in the 9th inning to score Figgins and Bradley. He had 5 RBI for the night along with a pair of hits and a pair of runs. He is now hitting .302 on the season with 4 HR and 14 RBI. He is the 2nd Mariners hitter to be batting over .300 this season, right behind Ichiro. He definitely seems to be developing into the hitter we all hoped he could be. I'll be honest, I was not his biggest fan but seeing him day after day, I am real excited for him. I hope he will be part of the group of young good players that the Mariner's are starting to accumulate.

Now, if we can just get Ackley up here and acclimated to the Majors, we definitely will have a solid core to work with for the future. Ackley, Smoak, Felix, Pineda!!!

Then we have the bottom of the order, beginning with Cust. I am already done with him. He was 1-5 tonight and struck out 4 times! He is hitting .177 through the first 25 games and has collected only 13 hits. Yes, he has 16 walks, but we did not bring him here to take just walks. He was supposed to be the Power in the middle of the lineup yet what power have we seen from him. He has only 2 doubles and has yet to hit a HR this season! Let's just drop him while we still have time to pick up the pieces. Are you telling me that there is no one in the Minors (Peguero?) who could come up here and hit at least .180? I would rather see a young guy with potential struggling but getting his chance rather than a guy who clearly does not have it any more.

The bottom 3, including Kennedy, Ryan and Saunders combined for a 1-13 with a walk.

I was just looking at Smoak's gamelog for this season and realized that he has hit a HR in his last 3 games played! Of course, there was a week between the 1st and 2nd HR's but still, that is 3 in three. He is hitting .346/.452/.808 his last 8 games with 9 hits, 4 of them HR, 5 walks and 10 RBI! Keep it up Justin Smoak!

0And the M's sweep the Detroit Tigers! They win the game 7-2 after another great start by Pineda and a fine offensive showing by the M's hitters.

Pineda goes 6 innings while only giving up 2 runs. He only had 4 hits and 3 walks but had a career high 9 SO's! His ERA is sitting pretty at 2.01 right now. Not a bad start to his career as he now sports a 4-1 record!

Pauley was brought in for the 6th and 7th which were scoreless and Wright came in to finish out the 9th.

Ichiro extended his hitting streak to 6 games with another 2 hit performance along with an RBI double. Figgins also had 2 hits and an RBI and raised his BA up to .191. Still a long ways to go to get to respectable but he is headed in the right direction at the moment.

Olivo had a big day with a HR and scoring 2 runs. Smoak also added an RBI double to the mix. Only Bradley and Ryan came away with no hits. Ryan came in to relieve Wilson who I guess had some eye issues? Something stuck in his eye?

Olivo has had 7 hits in his last 3 games, good enough to raise his BA from .164 to .230.

Luckily, Smoak, after his 4 SO performance last night was benched in favor of Kennedy who was the DH today. He did a respectable job, going 1-3 with a walk and a run scored and guess what, no SO!

So the Mariner's offense has been quite good this series, with the big difference being the hitting with RISP. The Mariners scored 24 runs in their last 3 games, all wins.

Justin Smoak now has an 11 game on base streak to go with hit 6 game hit streak.

All in all, I am happy for the win and the sweep! Hoping they can keep it up when they head to Boston!

Hey Seattle, with the win today and the Rangers Losing, we are only like 4.5 games behind. I'm not kidding myself into thinking we could win the division, but it would be nice to stay close for as long as possible.

Hey Seattle, with the win today and the Rangers Losing, we are only like 4.5 games behind. I'm not kidding myself into thinking we could win the division, but it would be nice to stay close for as long as possible.

The Mariner's beat the Red Sox 5-4 for their 4th consecutive win of the season.

Ichiro and Figgins each had 2 hits and 2 runs each. Bradley was 0-5 (with 2 SO). Olivo, Smoak and Cust each added a hit and an RBI (2 for Smoak). The bottom 4 all went hitless, though Saunders had 2 walks.

The Mariner's take game 2 from Boston, assuring their second series win in a row. They won 2-0 and Fister improves his record to 2-3 and loweres his ERA to 2.70 (from 3.19). He has now only given up 3 runs in his last 3 games combined!

Ichiro and Figgins each had 2 hits (Ichiro also added 2 BB's and 2SB's) and Ichiro scored 1 of the 2 runs for the M's. Cust also had a hit and 2 walks and scored the 2nd of the Mariner's runs. Not the best offensive showing by this lineup but the pitching was outstanding. Fister pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings and Pauley came in for 2 1/3 frames, giving up only 1 hit and 1 BB; his ERA now sits at 1.80. Brandon League came in and completed his 7th Save of the season and the M's came away with another great victory!

Figgins had another 2 hit night, his 4th in a row, all apart of his current 5 game hit streak. He has raised his BA to .214 over the past 12 games, up from .143 on April 18th. He is hitting .409 the past 5 games. Hoping he keeps it up.

Went to my 2nd Mariner's game of the season and was gifted with another win!

The M's won tonight 4-3 over the Texas Rangers.

Bedard was a bit wild in the 1st inning giving up a run on 30+ pitches. He slowly settle down and carried a no hitter into the 6th inning and ended up going 7 innings, giving up 2 runs. The big hitter of the game was none other than Justin Smoak who went 3-4 with a double and 2 RBI.

This is a good start to their home stand! They have 7 wins out of their last 10 games. The rest of the division teams lost tonight, so we picked up a game on them, just one step closer!

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone! The M's take the game and the series vs. Texas as they win tonight 3-1.

Vargas pitched masterfully, going 7 2/3 innings, giving up the only run all on 6 hits, 2 walks and 98 pitches. Wright came in to finish the 8th and League came in and kept his streak alive! League now has 9 saves on the season, all without a blown save!

Vargas lowered his season ERA to 4.68, down from 5.48, nearly a full point!

Smoak hit a big HR to right field, his 5th of the season and almost hit another when he launched it to CF where it hit high off the wall for a double. He ended the day 3-4 with a run and an RBI. He is now hitting .315 on the season and now has 20 RBI. Ichiro had 2 hits tonight, his 15th multi-hit game of the season (league leading I might add).

Luis Rodriguez got the start at 3B tonight and hit in the #2 hole. He went 1-4 with an RBI.

Colby Lewis, the starter for Texas went the full game, giving up 3 runs over 8 innings with 11 SO! But he gets the loss none the less. He is now 2-4 on the season while Vargas improves to 2-2, his 2nd consecutive win!

The Mariner's now have a record of 15-17, keeping themselves in the race. The AL West is clearly the tightest race in this early season with every other Division having a much wider gap between the top and the bottom. The M's are at the bottom, yet only 3 games from the top.

That definitely makes for a more interesting season.

Before todays games, the AL East leading Yankess were at 17-11, 2 games over the2nd place Rays and 4 games over the Blue Jays.

In the Central, Cleveland was on top at 20-9, 4.5 games over #2 Kansas City and 10.5 games over Chicago at the bottom.

So, would I be alone in my thoughts that Justin Smoak should be batting in the #4 hole and not in the #5 hole? Right now, they have removed Cust from there (good move, though now he is hitting a little better . . .) and replaced him with Miguel Olivo.

Now, in the last 10 games, he is hitting .286, but in his last 6, only .136. And let's be honest, Olivo is not the guy you really want in the cleanup spot. Sure, he had a few good games, but overall, I want an actual good hitter there.

Smoak is clearly the best hitter on the team. And the only real power threat (HR and doubles). If he was batting #4, he would have more opportunities to be at bat with Ichiro and Figgins on with fewer than 2 outs. And since he is our main run producer, why not put him in the spot where he can best push in some runs?

Smoak is hitting .315, Olivo is hitting .208.

Smoak is hitting .333/.395/.641 in his last 10 games with 4 HR and 14 RBI! This is who needs to be in the Cleanup Spot, the one guy on the team who can rake!

Am I wrong in this?

As a counter argument, there is the thought that maybe they do not want to put undue pressure on him to perform and putting him in the cleanup role might mess with his mind. But I do not think it would do that. He clearly has shown that he can handle big league pitching and handle it with a lot of stress in his life (i.e. the passing of his father). He can handle the pressure and handle it well. Moving him up a spot in the order shouldn't put much more expectation on him, we would just look for him to continue what he is doing now. We don't expect him to hit .333 with a HR every other day (though that would be nice), we would just like a solid consistent hitter there to help improve our offensive output.